Breaking News: ANGOLA Lifts Anti LGBT Laws

24Jan 2019

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The
New Year has begun with some good news for African LGBT citizens. On the same
day that legendary Zimbabwean musician Oliver Mtukudzi died, so too did a
colonial era law outlawing same sex conduct in Angola. Like most African
counties, the former Portuguese colony which gained independence in 1975,
inherited its discriminatory laws from its colonisers. On 23rd
January, Angola’s parliament approved its first new penal code since gaining
independence, and in so doing removed the “vices against nature” provision in
its law, a clause used to ban on homosexual conduct.

As
in many other African states, although this clause was seldom enforced, provisions
such as this are often a sword of Damocles hanging over citizens “and curtail
the rights and freedoms of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people,
subjecting their intimate lives to unwarranted scrutiny. Colonial-era laws
outlawing same-sex conduct give tacit state support to discrimination against
gender and sexual minorities, contributing to a climate of impunity” said
Graeme Reid, Director of the LGBT Rights Program at Human Rights Watch.

In
addition to removing what has often been described as a divisive clause, Angola
has also prohibited discrimination against people on the basis of sexual
orientation. Anyone refusing to employ
or provide services to individuals based on their sexual orientation may face
up to two years in prison. This is a
huge step. Iris Angola Association (Associação Íris Angola), the country’s only
gay rights lobby group, has reported that its members often face discrimination
when accessing health care and education. Now there is legal recourse.

In
June 2018, Iris Angola, which was formed in 2013, became the first civil rights
organisation that advocates for LGBT rights to be legally registered by the
Angolan government. The group called the decision an “historic moment” allowing
the organization to defend the rights of sexual minorities in Angola. In 2015, Mozambique, another former
Portuguese colony, decriminalized homosexuality, when it also adopted a new
penal code, but failed to register Lambda, the country’s largest LGBT group, leaving
it to operate freely, but not legally.

While
countries such as India have been compelled by court rulings to strike
anti-homosexuality laws from the books, others have done so through legislative
reform. Recent examples in Africa include two other former Portuguese colonies Sao
Tome and Principe (2012) and Cape Verde (2004), as well as Lesotho (2012) and
Seychelles (2016) in Africa, and Palau (2014) and Nauru (2016) in Oceania.

While
Angolans can rejoice that their government has embraced equality, there are
still 69 countries that still criminalize consensual same-sex conduct,
sometimes with dire consequences which include the death penalty.